Engraving from the book The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, 1890

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Maxwellian

Maxwellian (maks-WEL-i-an) adjective

Of or relating to James Clerk Maxwell or his equations and theory in
electromagnetism and other fields.

[After James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist (1831-1879).]

Maxwellian (maks-WEL-i-an) adjective

Of or relating to shady business practices, financial tricks, misuse
of public funds, etc.

In the US we had Ken Lay and friends from Enron; across the pond in
the UK, there was Ian Robert Maxwell (1923-1991). Maxwell was a
Czechoslovakian-born British publisher who became notorious for
misusing his employees' pension funds of some 400 million pounds.
He also engaged in dubious transactions between his private companies
and a public company to prop them up and boost the share prices.

For his resilience to rebound after a castigating government report,
he earned the nickname the Bouncing Czech.